People invested in social change often use arguments of the form “you should do this or else you’re a bad person,” presumably because they think that this will motivate people to do it more effectively than arguments like “you should do this because here are all the ways it would make the world better,” or “you should do this because you would benefit from it yourself,” or others.

But in my experience as a writer and educator, this actually gets in the way because it paralyzes people. The thought of being A Bad Person looms so prominently in their minds that rather than reevaluating their opinions or behavior, they protest and get angry and resentful. The idea of being judged A Bad Person by someone they don’t even know makes them indignant, and that’s not a situation conducive to learning or social change.

That’s why I’ve largely been moving away from labeling people Good or Bad, both out loud and in my own thinking. Yes, sometimes it’s unavoidable to think that someone is A Bad Person, but I find that these thoughts *get in the way*. A Bad Person can be written off forever. A Bad Person can also be abused and treated cruelly with no ethical qualms, and you can probably see how this easily leads in a really bad direction.

Why is it that if an intoxicated driver collides with a pregnant woman thus imposing consequential injuries that result in the death of her unborn child, this drunk individual can be legally charged with involuntary manslaughter, yet if this pregnant mother were to travel to a clinic and abort her child voluntarily at the same point in development, it would be completely legally acceptable?

The issue of abortion is not rooted in legality or politics, although the law so blatantly fails to protect our young; it is a problem of morality and conscience, both of which we seem to lack. Our sense of value has been lost in the struggle for convenience, and with it the sanctity of human life.

“Feminism dares to expect more from men. Feminism expects a man to be ethical, emotionally present, and accountable to his values in his actions with women—as well as with other men. Feminism loves men enough to expect them to act more virtuously and actually believes them capable of doing so. Feminism is a vision that expects men to go from being ‘just guys,’ accepting whatever they might happen to do, to being just guys—capable of autonomy and authenticity, inspired by justice.”

Participants in the study played video games in which they imagined
themselves to be shooting innocent civilians (unjustified violence) or
enemy soldiers (justified violence). Their brain activity was recorded
via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they played.

Dr Molenberghs said the results provided important insights into how
people in certain situations, such as war, are able to commit extreme
violence against others.

“When participants imagined themselves shooting civilians compared to
soldiers, greater activation was found in the lateral orbitofrontal
cortex (OFC), an important brain area involved in making moral
decisions,” Dr Molenberghs said.

“The more guilt participants felt about shooting civilians, the
greater the response in the lateral OFC. When shooting enemy soldiers,
no activation was seen in lateral OFC.”

The results show that the neural mechanisms that are typically
implicated with harming others become less active when the violence
against a particular group is seen as justified.

“The findings show that when a person is responsible for what they
see as justified or unjustified violence, they will have different
feelings of guilt associated with that – for the first time we can see
how this guilt relates to specific brain activation,” Dr Molenberghs
said.

The researchers hope to further investigate how people become
desensitised to violence and how personality and group membership of
both perpetrator and victim influence these processes.

“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

—

Sr. Joan Chittister, O.S.B.

Being pro-life means so much more than being against abortion. It means standing up for life at all its stages.

All these people talking about how they feel bad about this lion and how hunting is wrong, and how animals do not deserve this. I entirely agree with them. But yet, these hypocrites still go out and have dead animals on their plates and paying other people to raise their food for slaughter.
Seriously, shut the fuck up with your hypocrisy.

“Like anybody can tell you, I am not a very nice man. I don’t know the word. I have
always admired the villain, the outlaw, the son of a bitch. I don’t like the clean-shaven
boy with the necktie and the good job. I like desperate men, men with broken teeth
and broken minds and broken ways. They interest me. They are full of surprises and
explosions. I also like vile women, drunk cursing bitches with loose stockings and
sloppy mascara faces. I’m more interested in perverts than saints. I can relax with
bums because I am a bum. I don’t like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don’t like to be
shaped by society.”

“I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

“I am not unappreciative of the positive elements of religion; I am just convinced that the positive elements are far outweighed by the negative, and that the positives of religion probably would happen on their own anyway without religion.”